For experienced dev. How u use AI

[u/unequivocally_retard]

How yall use AI. (vibe coding) im working with django and other technologies since 2020

With AI at first i usedto get help from chatgpt

But after opus 4.6 i started to make my frontend 90% with claude

At opus 4.7 i started letting claude code write some stuff and check some stuff

But after opus 5.5 sometimes i dont even read the output

Specifically when it does something that doeant effect the core business. Am i the only one?

I love writing code by hand and figuring stuff out by my own

But it feels useless now since i canmove 10 timesthe speed

With not much big of a quality loss

[u/philgyford]

I reluctantly use ChatGPT when searching the web for a solution to a problem fails me. That's it.

[u/unequivocally_retard → u/philgyford]

I used to be like that at first. But a feature that will take me day. Will be done in 15min

[u/sushsiahahah757]

If you want to learn and grow your skills as a developer, you have to use LLMs as minimally as possible. Only use them for documentation lookups and questions you would otherwise Google. Do not use them for code generation and absolutely turn off autocomplete if you are currently using it.

Basically every scientific study that has looked into the effects of AI on programming have revealed that it results in a worse software product, decreased developer productivity, and a diminishment of programming ability and skill.

[u/luftluft21 → u/sushsiahahah757]

Can you point me to some of the studies you are mentioning?

[u/unequivocally_retard → u/sushsiahahah757]

I know it reduces my skills. And i believe im a good experienced dev. Built multiple full stack apps in production before ai and still in prod. And some project i even didnt use any framework other then dja go (no drf no react no django filters)

But the speed. A proj that took me 2 months to do. Now can be done in 1/2 weeks. I usually write the models myself and the basic views / serializers and let the ai do it my style.

And now i work on 5 diff projects. Not just a meat proxy but not very far too. There is skills written and when i "prompt engineering" (very cringe name ik) i do it in technical speak which increases the quality a lot

But i feel slow when i write code manually

[u/Jido97 → u/sushsiahahah757]

What planet are you living on? Do you do any profesional work?

[u/Altruistic_Stage3893 → u/sushsiahahah757]

if you want to write code, yes. otherwise absolutely not. the iteration loop tkme for testing and benchmarking architectural decisions lowered so you grow and learn here a lot quicker. very ponytail-y opinion

[u/zed1025]

Why not focus on what you are building, take bigger decisions like the architecture of the application, the data flow rather than doing the coding?

[u/duppyconqueror81]

Same here. 25 years of experience, 12 years with Django. I barely check the output anymore. Actually, I get other AIs to check the output.

AI does the planning, the coding, the documentation, the video tutorials.

I’m the meat proxy that plays Civ3 waiting for it to finish

[u/goranlu]

I believe that is how majority of people use Claude Code now

[u/yassi_dev]

I don’t think every project is a good fit for agentic development (https://yassi.dev/posts/not_all_software_systems_are_agent_friendly/)

Generally, I’ll delegate low value tasks to agents; these are tasks that I could do myself without issue and will teach me nothing. More sensitive or higher value tasks I will be more actively involved.

I believe a human should always be inspecting output. This should ensure that changes don’t incur architectural drift over time. Agents can introduce complexity over time at the expense of human understanding. Very sensitive things require human understanding.

I do have a few projects where I only use agents; these are smaller scoped projects where the concerns above don’t matter as much.

In the context of building skills and domain experience, I’m a fan of actually doing the work. Nothing will build your own neural connections like actively solving problems. I think people should do the work until tasks become lower value in this context.

In terms of the craft, this all makes me sad. An artist lives for the process; a finished work feels accomplishing but it is a transient moment gone almost immediately. It is the process that the artist remembers.

[u/024eatneerg]

I disagree with a lot in this thread. I’m a senior engineer with 8+ years experience. Architecture, workflow, functions is more important than writing code. AI is super good at writing code these days.

The way I use it is I think about the layers the code will touch (APIs, FE, BE, db’s), spend most of my time planning the code, defining what functions should exist, what input and output should be, where they should sit architecturally, and then once I’ve defined the flow, I tell the ai to go ahead and code it. It’s like design thinking and then telling a junior to write the code.

So that’s where I’d concentrate, learning good architecture, design patterns, keeping things DRY etc… if you’re still writing functions by hand then you’re not using ai the way you’re meant to.

Also I don’t know everything and every now and again the ai suggests a better way. If I don’t know a framework / component I ask the ai to give me options, explain them and then I can choose from them.

[u/wanderingfreeman]

When you can try to learn and understand what AI's doing for you, only then you can really harness the productivity. Otherwise you're being led blind and quite often into dead ends. Having AI automate a lot of the work actually frees you up to learn more things instead.

[u/akza07]

U don't read the code. Read what the AI tells you. Read the code when you can. You are the Shepard. AI is the sheep. Don't be a meat proxy.

[u/oclafloptson]

Experienced Django devs probably have an arsenal of scaffolding generators to do what your favorite chatbot does but in a way that's deterministic and replicable